BREMERTON - JoAnne Marez, 67, longtime reporter and features editor for the Kitsap Sun, died Sunday in Bremerton from complications related to an infection.

Marez joined the newspaper staff in 1971, coming to Bremerton from the Idaho Free Press in Nampa. As a reporter, she covered beats ranging from society news to education to Bremerton city government, but she was perhaps best known for writing about police, fire and courts.

Later, she became a features writer for the Sun, reporting on the personal stories about people, sometimes in joyous, other times tragic, situations. In 2001, she became editor of the features department. After she retired in 2005, she continued to write small news items and occasional news stories, always considering herself a part of the Sun staff, according to Editor David Nelson.

Upon her retirement in 2005, Scott Ware, who was editor at the time, commented: "JoAnne has been many things to The Sun — education reporter, cops reporter, city hall reporter, investigative reporter, feature writer, editor. But I will always think of her, perhaps as much as anyone over the last three and a half decades, as the heart and soul of this newspaper."

Brian Stallcop, editor from 1998 to 2001, said Marez was "the consummate professional trusted by her editors and trusted by her sources."

Her extensive knowledge of the community came out not only in her own work but also in the work of other reporters, especially younger staff members, whom she was always willing to help, Stallcop said.

"She would recognize immediately when a story was important, and she made sure it got the attention that it deserved," Stallcop said. "The Sun and its readers benefitted from her decades of knowledge. She had sources in every corner of the county."

Whether writing hard news or features, Marez focused on the people at the center of her stories. Port Orchard author Debbie Macomber credits Marez with helping propel Macomber's budding career writing women's fiction.

Macomber's New York publicist had been angling for coverage in East Coast publications with no luck. Marez in the mid-1990s wrote a heartfelt feature on Macomber's struggles to become a published author. The article was the first of many on Macomber picked up by The Associated Press as she became a regular on The New York Times best-seller list.

"She was a consummate journalist, a quintessential journalist. I don't know if I've ever met anyone as quick and as sharp as JoAnne," Macomber said. "It was more than just the words she used. She was passionate about what she did, and it showed."

When asked about her most memorable stories, Marez would talk about Jimmy Moore, a 9-year-old burn victim who survived a firebombing of a house in Bremerton. It was a story of a courageous boy who struggled to recover physically and emotionally from third-degree burns over 90 percent of his body.

"It meant a lot to me to do that story," she said, "because he was such an extraordinary kid."

Former Kitsap County Sheriff Pat Jones said Marez was able to investigate and report on crimes like nobody else.

"The law enforcement community had the upmost respect for JoAnne," Jones said. "She did her job well and had the utmost confidence from me and many law-enforcement administrators."

Jones said he could take JoAnne to a crime scene, such as where a murder had taken place, and explain the details of the crime. If there were a good reason to keep certain information out of the newspaper, Marez would comply.

"We didn't hide anything from her," Jones said, adding that all details she was able to pick up made for a more complete and accurate story. "Putting her on the police beat — where you are dealing with a bunch of cops, who are not easy to deal with — was the smartest move Kitsap Sun management ever made."

The police and courts beat was her favorite, because each assignment was like opening a new detective novel, she said in an interview when she retired.

"It was intriguing," she explained. "I loved everybody in law enforcement. I will forever in my heart be a cops reporter."

Fellow reporter Rachel Pritchett recalled her reporting techniques and some fun times away from the office.

"People in the community knew and adored JoAnne," Pritchett said. "A lot of that was because of the way she wrote — personal and homey, like she was talking to you across the backyard fence. She knew everyone in town and everything about them, good and bad, but always was discreet."

In the 1980s, many of the reporters were single, Pritchett recalled.

"JoAnne was Mother Hen to folks like Chris Dunagan, Lloyd Pritchett, Pete Dane, Ralph Seeley, Debbie Norman and myself," she said. "We spent many evenings at JoAnne's, playing and arguing over Trivial Pursuit and later Pictionary, but always enjoying her seafood salad. The games got so intense we had to appoint Debbie the peacemaking oracle. We were family during those days."

JoAnne Coker was born June 18, 1946, in Nampa and moved with her family to Grandview, Mo., and then Garden Grove, Calif., where she served as the editor of her high school newspaper in her junior year. In 1963, the family returned to Nampa, where she worked on that school paper as well.

After graduating from Nampa High School in 1964, she worked at a lunch counter and wrote a guest editorial for the Free Press. Her writing abilities were recognized by editor Oren Campbell, and she got her first newspaper job as a proof reader. She was married to Pete Marez from 1964 to 1967.

JoAnne worked her way into a reporting position at the Free Press and followed Campbell to Bremerton when Campbell became managing editor for the Bremerton Sun, as the paper then was called.

She won many awards for her reporting, including a first-place award in investigative reporting from the Society of Professional Journalists. That story addressed the political atmosphere in downtown Bremerton in the early 1980s, when fire codes were not being uniformly enforced against all property owners.

In 2000, Marez won a first-place award in health reporting for a series about various people learning to cope with diabetes. The series was called, "Living by the Numbers."

That same year, Kitsap Community Resources recognized Marez with a Max Hale award for outstanding community service. The organization credited her with reporting the "human side" of stories, particularly her weekly "Unsung Heroes" series, which she wrote for about eight years.

Survivors include her son, Steven Marez, and her grandson, Alex Marez, both of Bremerton; her mother, Lorraine Payne of Nampa, Idaho; a brother, James Payne of Cordiz Lakes, Ariz.; a sister, Barbara Pennington of Royce City, Texas; her aunt, Jan Walker of Nampa; and several nieces and nephews.